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The GSMA announced the successful completion of the first Mobile Energy Efficiency Optimisation project with Telefónica Germany and Nokia Siemens Networks’ Energy Solutions

PHOTO / telecomkh.com

Telefónica Germany participated in the GSMA’s Mobile Energy Efficiency (MEE) Benchmarking service, which helps mobile operators lower their energy costs and carbon footprint by benchmarking network energy efficiency, and over the past three years has improved network energy efficiency by 14 per cent per connection. Keen to improve its energy efficiency further, Telefónica Germany signed up to the GSMA’s MEE Optimisation service, which identified an additional cost saving potential of €1.8 million per year.
“We are delighted that this collaboration with Telefónica and Nokia Siemens Networks is a success and look forward to achieving the identified savings,” said Gabriel Solomon, Head of Public Policy, GSMA. “The GSMA is focused on replicating this success with other networks around the world as we increasingly see that energy efficiency is a strategic priority for mobile network operators globally.”
“At Telefónica we are fully committed to improving our energy efficiency and have defined public improvement targets and dedicated efforts for over a decade to this area, as part of Telefónica Group’s energy and carbon strategy,” said Gabriel Bonilha, Head of Energy Efficiency, Telefónica Group. “Being a MEE pioneer has helped us to quantify the opportunity ahead of us and this optimisation exercise, supported by the GSMA and Nokia Siemens Networks, is an important step in seizing that opportunity.”
“Working with the GSMA and Telefónica helped Nokia Siemens Networks to understand and provide innovations and high quality solutions to enhance energy efficiency in Telefónica´s Mobile Broadband business,” said Nestor Gonzalez, Head of Sales, Global Services, Nokia Siemens Networks. “Increasingly we see an ever greater convergence between good energy efficient performance and eco-sensitive design which helps to reduce the carbon footprint of telecommunications equipment.”
Launched in 2011, MEE Optimisation is a follow-on service from MEE Benchmarking that develops action plans for mobile operators to reduce network energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. It identifies energy-saving measures and assesses the business case of each measure, enabling operators to implement cost-effective solutions. This first MEE Optimisation pilot comes at a time of increased global focus by operators on improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions, and growing interest by political stakeholders, in particular the European Commission, on emissions reduction in ICT and in the rest of the global economy.

Energy efficiency measures that Telefónica Germany identified:
• Application of Smart Energy Control Solution: Annual savings of €400 000 (nine-month payback), 2 gigawatt hours of electricity (GWh) and 1 kilotonne of carbon dioxide emissions (KTCO2) are estimated by Nokia Siemens Networks; and
• Switching to more efficient rectifiers: The aim is to ensure that rectifiers used on-site are high efficiency and the upgrade provides optimal results. This results in estimated annual savings of approximately €1 million in operating expenses, and up to 5 GWh and 2 KTCO2.

The project identified overall estimated annual savings of up to €1.8 million in Telefónica Germany’s radio network, by undertaking the cost-effective measures outlined above, with financial paybacks of nine to 30 months. The energy and carbon savings identified totalled up to 9 GWh and 4 KTCO2 respectively. These savings would be in addition to the measures that Telefónica is currently implementing, which include switching more cell sites to free cooling.
The GSMA’s MEE Benchmarking service was launched in 2010 and helps mobile operators lower their energy costs and carbon footprint by benchmarking network energy efficiency across their portfolio and anonymously comparing them with their global peers. MEE Benchmarking has 35 operators participating, accounting for more than 200 networks worldwide. Providing a like-for-like comparison, MEE Benchmarking uniquely normalises for factors outside an operator’s control, such as temperature and population density, and the methodology has been included as part of a global ITU standard on environmental impact assessment in ICT.
The project for Telefónica investigated 20 representative cell sites in Germany, gathering detailed data on their performance. Smart meters were also deployed to improve the accuracy of the data. The information was assessed and a summary of results produced. A case study is available at http://www.gsma.com/mobile-energy-efficiency-resources/
As part of its on-going work the GSMA plans to publish the first global data of mobile network energy consumption and carbon emissions later this year.